The present invention relates to a molecular composite material comprising a liquid crystal polymer and a thermoplastic polymer and a method for producing same, and more particularly to a molecular composite material having good mechanical properties together with excellent heat resistance, water absorption resistance, solvent resistance, etc. and a method for producing same.
Liquid crystal polymers such as polyesters, polyazomethines, etc. show excellent mechanical properties. Among them, polyazomethines are promising as reinforcing resins for molecular composite materials because of good mechanical properties. The details of polyazomethines are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,048,148. To exhibit the properties of these liquid crystal polymers, they should sufficiently be oriented. However, since the orienting of the liquid crystal polymers at the time of forming makes the resultant formed products anisotropic, the liquid crystal polymers can be used only for limited applications.
Research has been conducted to provide excellent polymer alloys by blending polyazomethines with thermoplastic polymers. For instance, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-51118 discloses composite materials obtained by dispersing a polyazomethine precursor in a precursor of a matrix polymer, causing the reaction of the polyazomethine precursor to form polyazomethine as a polymer in situ, and then polymerizing the precursor of a matrix polymer. However, sufficient dispersion cannot be achieved between the liquid crystal polymer and the thermoplastic polymer, mainly because they do not have good compatibility.